Well, you know what they say. The family that get’s into an altercation with a 65 year old lady with big hair from Texas because she cut in line in front of us at the Nordstrom Santa photo booth together, stays together. And apparently goes to jail together too. I’ll admit this is all a bit embarrassing, but as you can see, we were a little tied up so to speak this last Christmas. Not exactly how we envisioned spending the Holidays, but thankfully everything got cleared up and we are now back home. I wasn’t sure if we were going to be able to do our annual family picture this year, but thankfully one of the guards took this for us, and it turned out pretty good. It is a part of our story now, so why pretend it didn’t happen I guess.

Oh, and is it too late to say Happy New Year? Happy New Year everyone. I hope you enjoy the new Keatley Family Picture. And some of you thought we weren’t going to do one this year. Please!

And one more thing. If anyone want’s to help me pick up trash on the side of I-90 between Issaquah and Bend for the next 6 months, give a holler. I would love your help.

My rep asked me to come up with an image for a valentines day promo this year and the assignment was to interpret the color red. I had the option of using an image from my archive, or I could shoot something new. I love excuses to create new work, so of course I jumped at the opportunity. Assignments like this are great because I enjoy having some sense of structure, or a goal, but it also allows your imagination to run wild by leaving things open. Taylor and I had some fun brainstorming sessions over this, and our ideas were all over the place. As usually happens with my personal work, we landed on one idea, and then the more we talked about it, the idea began to shift and change until we got here. Going into the shoot, the idea was to shoot a different angle, but when working with bulls or other crazy animals, there is an element of taking what they give you. I really didn’t want them to give me the horns so to speak… Plus I realized while shooting that I liked this angle better anyway. As much as we plan everything out, it’s always good to try to stay open to changes and improvements that come up along the way.

This shoot came a few weeks after working with Kodiak bears, and surprisingly enough, I was more scared of the bulls. Almost terrified even. It didn’t help matters that the rancher we were working with told me horror stories of people being disfigured and killed by bulls for about 15 minutes before he said, “Well, why don’t we hop in.” Sounds good. Let’s jump a fence into a field of bulls. Why am I doing this again?

So there you have it. This was a really fun project from beginning to end. Big thanks to Ryan Cleary on the beautiful retouching work as well. Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy the image.

Can you relate? You wake up in a haze, thinking a cup of coffee will do the trick. Trying to start your day out on the right foot, but instead you get a mouthful of bitter disappointment.

I had several goals pinned on the wall as I began the process of putting together this personal series. Shoot in detailed environments. Experiment with backlight where a light source is visible, or has a prominent role in the image. And finally, have fun with facial expressions. That was the easy part. The hard part was coming up with the concept to make all of the elements come together. Gives you a whole new appreciation for copywriters and art directors!
Thankfully I work with some incredible people, and after some brainstorming, the bad coffee face idea was born.

So how does a personal shoot like this come together? A lot of hard work, and a crew of talented and creative people. The car shoot was the first of the three, and this BTS video by Eric Becker is a good walkthrough of what it all looks like on set.

The second shoot was the kitchen image. Locating and securing the home was by far the most difficult part. After finding and locking in the location, we received a text the night before the shoot, which said it was no longer happening with no explanation. I knew that kitchen was perfect for this shot, so after a lot of leg work and negotiating, we were back on track. There is a certain mindset I feel is invaluable and absolutely necessary to make it as a photographer. Tattoo these phrases on your arm, and never forget them. No excuses, always ask questions, politely don’t take no for an answer, and do whatever it takes to make it work. There is always a solution, no matter what the problems you are faced with. Wrapping your mind around these ideas will help prepare you for the struggles you are guaranteed to face as a photographer on almost a daily basis.

I wrapped this series up with the park bench shot. I scouted several parks in Seattle until I found a bench I really liked. It ended up being in a large forested park, which was a perfect place to shoot. The permit was affordable, and it was a wide open space without crowd’s of people and traffic to worry about. After the shoot with the bench and model, I woke up at sunrise the next day, and shot around an urban neighborhood near downtown Seattle. It is important to make sure the light and angles of the environment match the light on the bench and model so the finished product looks as realistic as possible. I made sure all of the landscape images I shot had the sun in the correct place according to where I placed lights on the model shoot. I also used a tripod so my camera height and angle was the same as it was during the model shoot.

I love working like this because it gives me complete control of the final image without being restricted by certain realities.